Notícias

The World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day was established in 2020 by the World Health Assembly and is celebrated on January 30th.

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30/01/2023

Neglected diseases are a group of tropical endemic diseases, mainly found in the poor populations of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Combined, they cause from 500 thousand to 1 million deaths early.

As they mainly affect populations that do not represent a profitable market for the pharmaceutical industry, there is no investment in researching and developing new drugs. Therefore, most existing treatments are old, ineffective, toxic (with serious side effects), or inaccessible. For some of these diseases, there is no treatment available at all. Approximately 1.7 billion people worldwide suffer from neglected tropical diseases, according to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO).